Awake yet Sleeping
by Quinis
Summary: They found him propped up on the roof of Wayne Enterprises. He was asleep and injured. His family gathered him up and took him home, unaware of his current state.


**Notes:** I really don't know with this one. This file's been sitting on my computer for a while, waiting completion (I can't know how long because I got a new computer and all my file creation dates reset to the day they were put onto the computer). I believe a few of the ideas just came from little things in the comics. It was one of the smart-me times since the plot had been all planned out and just needed to be written. So, here it is. A story kind of similar to 'Erasure' (but with the family hurting, not Dick) but with a happy ending.

I've taken liberty with the 'science' behind this story.

* * *

 **Awake yet Sleeping**

* * *

They found him propped up on the roof of Wayne Enterprises. He was asleep and injured. His family gathered him up and took him home, unaware of his current state.

* * *

His head was fuzzy, his vision sometimes too. He was in a state of constant daze and couldn't remember anything. He didn't fight, he was just tired. He followed the tugs on his arms and the soft voices and whatever small bits of emotions pierced his shell.

* * *

Damian had been all ready to scold Grayson when he awoke. Instead, he looked up from his book to see half-lidded eyes looking into the distance with no idea when they had opened.

"Grayson?" he questioned, ignoring the stab of fear.

The blue eyes blinked closed.

Damian exhaled and told himself that it was okay. Dick had just partially woken up and gone back to sleep.

He would be okay.

* * *

He wasn't. Bruce had been there when Dick opened his eyes next. He noticed the lack of recognition; the lack of anything, really. He pulled Dick up into a seating position and placed food in front of him.

Food Dick stared at without seeing. Bruce tried talking him through it but Dick didn't budge. Bruce quickly relented and went to get Alfred.

Dick was still staring at the food without seeing it. Alfred ignored the plummeting of his heart and walked over to the bed. He spooned up a bit of the soup and pressed it to Dick's mouth.

The man slowly opened his mouth and ate. Alfred had to spoon every bit into him.

Damian ducked his head in the door, watched Alfred wipe a dribble of food from Dick's lips and bolted. His head thudded in his chest and his eyes prickled.

Dick had been so still.

* * *

Tim visited a few days later. The only improvement was that Dick wasn't sleeping so much. Mostly he was just staring into the distance. Unresponsive.

"Hi, Dick," he said, swallowing the cold dread in his chest and sitting by his older brother's bedside. "How are you?"

The blue eyes didn't even turn to look at him. Dick seemed to staring at a spot on the wall.

"No improvement, huh?" Tim ignored the pang of sadness in his chest as he continued talking. "Bruce is looking into what might have caused this. There doesn't appear to be any sign of head trauma but, we haven't looked hard enough. Anyway, Jason's returned for a while, trying to keep Bruce from going crazy and-"

"No matter how much you talk, he's not going to respond." Jason was standing at the door with a frown on his face. Tim glared over at him.

"So what? It can't hurt!" He told himself that he didn't care that Dick didn't respond. In truth, he was hoping that if he talked enough, Dick would somehow miraculously get better.

It wasn't logical and that made his head hurt but the alternative was believing that Dick wouldn't get better and that hurt worse.

Jason glared at him for a few more moments before the look softened. Despite the bite in Tim's tone, Dick hadn't even twitched. That was wrong. Dick was movement and chatter and he certainly wouldn't let someone right next to him hurt like that without doing anything.

Jason sighed and walked over, sitting on the opposite side to Tim. He looked at Dick's statuesque features and touched a shaved cheek. He could feel stubble starting to grow back and he knew that Alfred would take care of that soon.

"Bruce has access to the best experts around the world," Jason said. He told himself that he was saying this to keep Tim calm, not him. "He'll find out what's wrong."

"If he doesn't..." Tim trailed off for a moment before continuing, "I'm worried that it might be as bad as when you died."

"Huh?"

"When you died, Bruce started taking crazy risks. He was close to killing criminals, even closer to killing himself. Not to mention, you can't tell him I told you this."

Tim's bright blue eyes pleaded with Jason. Jason was curious enough to give in.

"Alright. What is it?"

"Well, Bruce doesn't want you to know because he thinks it might make you even more homicidal than you are now and I only know because I worked the story out of Superman. But, after you died, Bruce tracked the Joker. The Joker had made a deal, meaning he couldn't be tried for any of his crimes up to that point. Bruce was angry and even hit Superman when he tried to explain that Batman couldn't go after the Joker. He did anyway and the Joker was blown up, not that Bruce believed him dead for a moment."

"He did that?" Jason asked, shocked. Bruce had hunted down the Joker, for him? "Why wouldn't he want me to know?"

Tim bit his lip and looked away.

"Because, you tried the same thing when you returned to Gotham. Tracking the Joker and blowing him up. Bruce didn't want you to think he approved. He doesn't approve of taking lives and if he had killed before I came along, it would have destroyed him when he calmed down. If he calmed down."

"If?"

"There's always the chance that he would have snapped. Gone crazy like the Joker or..." Tim's breath hitched and he looked everywhere but at Dick.

"Catatonic," Jason finished, guilty that he had brought this trail of thought to Tim. Completely rejecting reality and living in their head; Tim had been worried that Bruce would end up like that and was now worried that Dick was. "Come on, Dickey-bird's not like this because he killed someone."

Tim pursed his lips. Jason tried again.

"You know Dick, he wouldn't kill anyone." He was Bruce's little Golden boy, the one who followed all the rules. The one they couldn't live up to.

"He would. If it meant saving one of us."

"Nah. He wouldn't."

"He killed the Joker once. Because the Joker killed you and he thought the Joker killed me. Dick tries not to kill but, he's not incapable of it. And the guilt of taking a life would hit him hard. Not because of Bruce's teachings but because he lives to help people. He doesn't want any lives to end if he can help it. To be the cause of a life ending would horrify him."

Jason took a moment to be amazed at how well Tim knew all of them. Quiet, observing Tim, who never brought any of this up before now because he held hope that they would be able to work it all out without secrets being shared.

"You said 'horrify' not 'destroy'. Dick wouldn't go catatonic on us just because someone died." Tim didn't respond so he added, "tell me, would Dick put us through this just because he couldn't live with guilt?"

Tim shook his head.

"Good. Now, I originally came here because Alfred has dinner ready and I was supposed to warn you before Damian ate it all. So, how about we go and see if there's anything left?"

* * *

Damian snapped awake with a thrash and jolt. His heart was thudding and his body was damp with sweat.

Dick. He had dreamt about Dick. Taken, helpless and he couldn't do anything as his older brother and mentor was hurt and disposed of.

Damian couldn't go back to sleep after that. He had to check on his brother. He moved slightly down the shadows of the manor. His heart felt locked in the dark as well.

Images of Dick's hurt and damaged face hovered in his mind and he couldn't get rid of it.

He knocked on Grayson's door. In the past, that was enough to wake the man up. Now, nothing. Disappointed, Damian let himself in.

Dick was lying in the bed, looking asleep. Or as if he was lying in a coffin, waiting to be buried. Damian crept over.

He needed to be sure that his brother was breathing. He placed a hand on Dick's chest and breathed with its rise and fall.

"Grayson? Grayson? Wake up," he said, his voice disgustingly small and soft. When Dick's eyes didn't open, the panic and fear came back. "Dick? Wake up. Wake up!" He shook his brother, breathing in relief when blue eyes opened. Even though they didn't focus on him, just that they opened was enough to calm Damian a little.

Damian crawled up and sat next to Dick.

* * *

He had heard someone's voice. Someone calling for him through the fog. He was tired and wanted the voice to go away.

But it kept calling. He responded. Maybe. The fog was heavy but he felt the light hit his eyes as they opened. He rested in the fog. Waiting.

* * *

"Why won't you move?" Damian asked the blank blue eyes. They just stared back, occasionally blinking.

Damian sighed and pressed up against Dick's side and tried to recapture the warmth he felt before whatever happened to his brother happened.

Dick's arm didn't hug around him. The older man barely seemed to move as Damian rested his head on his chest and tried to match his breathing to the rise and fall of Dick's chest.

"What's wrong with you?" Damian whispered softly to himself, ignoring the way his heart constricted.

Alfred found Damian curled up against Dick's side. Sometime during the night, the older man's head had turned and his blue eyes were staring at the kid sharing his bed.

"Good morning, Master Richard," Alfred said. He recalled the numerous responses Dick would give him when he came in the morning.

 _'Hey, Alfred. Just give me a minute.'_

 _'Alfie~'_ as Dick would roll around in the sheets and try to escape the sun.

 _'Five more minutes,'_ was a common one.

Always, bouncing, wriggling, and moving. Rustling sheets, moving pillows, and padding feet.

 _'I'm up!'_

 _'I'm late!'_

 _'Alfred! Bring my sheets back!'_

 _'Ugh. Never again.'_

 _'Good morning, Alfred!'_

However, the figure on the bed didn't move. It didn't speak. Alfred brought in the tray of food he hoped to get into Dick's stomach and ignored Damian's embarrassment at being caught in a compromising position.

* * *

"How long do you think he'll be like this?" Jason asked Tim as they watched Dick from the door of the room. Alfred was patiently spooning food up to Dick's mouth, which seemed to take forever to open and swallow the soup Alfred had made.

"He's eating. And Alfred is good at caring for unconscious patients."

"Not for this long. Dick isn't even unconscious."

"What are you two talking about?" Damian demanded to know, seeming to appear from nowhere to glare up at them.

Both Tim and Jason went silent, sharing a guilty look.

"Well?" Damian demanded with his hands on his hips. He stared up at his brothers, waiting for an answer.

Tim stared at Jason and Jason shook his head. Damian scowled. Finally, Tim answered.

"We're just saying that… it's possible that Dick might not get better."

Damian's heart tensed and his eyes widened. He blinked to rid them of the hot, scratchy feeling that suddenly built up.

"Dick will get better!" he bellowed at them. In the room, Alfred turned to look at them. "He has to!" With that said, Damian stormed off. He didn't want to be in the presence of such fools anyway.

Alfred turned back to his charge as the other two boys moved away quietly. Dick hadn't even flinched, still lost to the world.

* * *

Something tugged at his sleeve. Again and again. His head lolled down to look at it.

"What are you doing out here?"

He blinked. He didn't remember. Something had brought him out here.

More tugs. He blinked.

"Come on, let's get you back to bed."

"Mm." He padded along the hallway. His body felt slow and heavy. His eyelids drooped. He knocked into the body guiding him as they stopped.

He was pulled in another direction, unintelligible noise ringing in his ears.

* * *

"Come on, Grayson!" Damian bellowed. He tried to pull the taller man along the hall. Dick was already bleeding from his arm, where a knife had nicked him.

The shadows moved. Deathstroke's footsteps were audible 'thump, thump, thump' as he came closer. Other figures shifted in the darkness. Ninja. Watching, waiting, penning them in.

"So be it," Damian said, pulling out his own blade. He would have to fight, whether he could win against these numbers or not. He stepped in front of Grayson.

Deathstroke chuckled. "I'm only here for Grayson. Move out of the way, little bird."

Damian shook his head. He wasn't in uniform but, it was obvious that Deathstroke knew exactly who he was facing. He parried the first few blows, getting pushed back. He knocked into Grayson, making a surprised sound that was _certainly not a squeak_.

The ninja moved in closer.

Damian knew they were in trouble. Where were the rest of the family?

"Your father and the others are fighting off more of these men," Deathstroke informed him, spotting the way the kid looked around.

Damian kicked back one ninja but the next ended up cutting his arm, dangerously close to stabbing him right through. This was it, he was going to die to these cowardly, weak villains.

A ninja lunched for him and Damian was pulled out of the way. The ninja was on the ground, clutching at their neck in pain. Another and then another fell to a flurry of fists and kicks.

Damian stared on, too shocked to move.

Grayson was fighting back.

* * *

His body went through the motions. It recalled how to fight, even without conscious thought. _He was in danger._ The need to move flooded his body with recalled, automatic movements. _Fight or run. Fight and run. Fight, fight, fight._

* * *

Deathstroke rushed forward, only to be thrown and then pinned to the ground with his own blade, barely managing to not lose his head. Dick was not holding back but he also wasn't fighting once the enemy went down.

"What's going on out here?" Bruce growled, shining a flashlight around. The remaining ninja scattered. The ones of the ground groaned in pain.

"Just checking on your oldest bird," Deathstroke grunted, pulling his sword out of his shoulder. He also made a quick escape. His escape was only made possible by how all the attention was on Dick.

Dick had stilled the moment Bruce's voice rang out. Damian reached for him and he bolted.

 _Run, run, run. Get away._

"Dick!" Damian was after him but Dick's legs were longer than his. Damian was lapped by his father, who managed to keep Dick in sight as they made their way to the library.

Jason appeared in the doorway, grabbing Dick in reflex as Dick pounded into him. Dick struggled and kicked.

"Jason! Let him go!" Damian shouted in warning.

Jason gave him a shocked look, surprised to hear his first name come from the little bird's mouth. He ended up letting go of Dick but still ended up with his back hitting the ground as Dick swept his feet out from under him with a kick before running inside the library before Bruce could grab him.

Dick bounded up using a table and a couple of lower shelves, until he was hidden in a far corner of the library, pressed up against the walls and sitting atop a bookcase.

"Dick!" Bruce called out, trying to coax him down. Dick's eyes were closed and he couldn't be sure his eldest heard him at all.

Damian just squared his jaw and pulled a plush chair over, climbing up to where Dick was. It was a tight squeeze but he managed to get up there.

Although, he wondered how Dick managed to squeeze himself in.

The sun was peeking through the curtains as Damian finally managed to pull and guide Dick back to the ground. Bruce wrapped them both in hugs as Jason and Tim watched nervously from the door.

"Good job," Bruce said to them both.

Dick stilled for a moment before his body slumped like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Great," Jason sighed, "who's going to carry his butt back upstairs?"

"I'll do it," Bruce said, hefting Dick's ragdoll body onto his shoulder.

"Will he be alright?" Tim asked as Bruce walked past.

"He'll be fine," Jason insisted.

"He's probably just tired himself out," Bruce said, hoping that this was a good thing.

* * *

Dick felt like he had been sleeping for ages. There were blurry impressions of what he had been up to while in trance but nothing beyond that. He had been surprised to open his eyes and see the ceiling of his bedroom in the manor. It beat the grey cell back when he had gone into the trance.

The sun was up and judging by the shadows, it was past mid-morning. Dick wondered if Alfred would mind if he went for a snack. He climbed out of bed and changed out of his sleepwear.

He was startled out of the bathroom by a startled cry from his bedroom.

"My word!"

"Alfred?" He dashed out, worried that the family guardian was hurt. "You okay?"

"Master Dick?" Alfred was staring at him in shock. Dick looked him up and down, Alfred doing the same to him. "You're up and moving."

"Of course I am," Dick responded, confused. What else would he be doing? Maybe, "how long was I asleep?"

Alfred shook his head. "You weren't exactly asleep, Master Dick."

"In trance then," he corrected. Bruce had been the one to teach him how to do that. His mentor had told him not to use it unless it was an emergency.

Dick figured being captured was reason enough. Especially after the first few days, when it became clear that they didn't realise he had been taken and all his attempts at escape had failed.

"A while," Alfred responded vaguely.

"A while?" Dick echoed.

"Perhaps you should see Master Bruce or the other young Masters."

Dick frowned but decided that Alfred was probably right.

* * *

He found Bruce in the study.

"Hey, Bruce!" he greeted cheerfully. It was almost humorous to see Bruce jump in surprise.

"Dick?" He stood up. "You're alright!"

"Of course," Dick responded. "Didn't you bring me out of it?"

Bruce took a few moments to process that. "A trance," he realised, suddenly glad that he hadn't taught those techniques to any of the other Robins. Only Dick knew the dangerous trances and Bruce had forgotten he had taught Dick them once. "What were the keywords to get you out?"

" _'Good job'_ ," Dick responded with a shrug. It was the only thing he could think of and he hadn't much time, deciding to try the trance shortly before his 'questioners' would return for another 'session'. "I wasn't going to give them a reason to say those words to me."

The lines around Bruce's eyes softened in sadness for what his eldest had probably gone though.

"I'm sorry I didn't figure it out sooner," he said.

"It's okay. I'm sorry I scared everyone." Because Dick had to have scared them. The trance made him almost catatonic and mostly unresponsive so he couldn't be questioned.

"Make sure you say that to your brothers. I think Jason will be annoyed to find out that you did it to yourself."

"Jason's here?" Dick's eyes widened in surprise. "He's visiting?"

"Actually, I think he lives here now," Bruce said with a privately pleased grin. "He visited when we first found you but never really left. He changed his room, with Tim and Damian helping him. He spent the day muttering about _feng shui_ or something like that."

* * *

Jason hadn't expected a hug. To be honest, he did the surprise hugging in this house. But, Dick barrelled into him like he hadn't seen him in ages, which might as well be the case.

"Jay! Hi, I'm awake!" he said. Jason just managed to hold back on punching him.

"Great," he grumbled instead. "I already miss the quiet." He didn't mean it though. It was nice to hear his brother's voice again after weeks of nothing.

"Jason? …Dick?" Tim questioned in surprise, having come to the door after hearing the commotion.

"Hi, Tim! I'm awake!" Dick said with a grin.

"He's awake," Jason echoed dully.

Tim stared. And stared.

"Tim?" Dick's grin faded into a worried frown.

Dick waved his hand in front of Tim who was just staring at him.

Tim grabbed it and frowned up at him. The expression didn't last long, the frown crumbling into a relieved expression.

"I thought... you're okay?"

Dick gave him a soft smile before hugging him. "I'm fine. I'm more worried about you guys. I probably put you through a lot. Sorry. I didn't think I would be under so long."

"'Under'?" Jason questioned from behind them. Turning back, Dick saw he had his arms crossed and an angry expression on his face. As if he knew that he wasn't going to like what Dick would answer.

He didn't.

"Why would Bruce teach you something like that?"

"Protection was the idea," Dick said carefully. He knew that while protection was the idea, it had the opposite effect sometimes. This was not the first time he had gone catatonic. The other only time had been back when he was Robin. It was the reason Bruce decided to not teach any of the others the techniques.

That time had been different though, with Dick appearing completely asleep to the outside world. If what Alfred had told was true, he was more active this time.

Tim and Jason looked horrified and annoyed with his use of the word 'active'.

"Never do it again," Jason said, his tone an order. Tim nodded an earnest agreement.

* * *

Once Damian stopped squeezing his sides like hugging was some kind of new assassination technique, he wholeheartedly agreed with Jason and Tim.

Dick thought it was a waste. It was a useful technique. It brought Jason home and got Tim to loosen up and rely on others for a little bit and even Damian seemed more affectionate.

Of course, it distressed his family far too much for him to consider using it again.


End file.
